Telangana: Khammam police crack down on fake seeds racket; nine arrested

Bases of three gangs raided; 560 kg of fake seeds worth Rs 14 lakh seized in separate cases, says Commissioner of Police

Khammam: In a crackdown on fake seeds racket, Khammam Commissionerate police raided bases of three gangs that were manufacturing fake seeds like a cottage industry.

Speaking to the media at Enkoor on Friday, Commissioner of Police Sunil Dutt said that police had seized 560 kg of fake seeds worth Rs 14 lakh in three separate cases and nine persons were arrested. Investigation into the cases would continue.

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As per government orders, stringent measures were being taken to ensure that farmers get quality seeds. If anyone tries to cheat farmers by duping them with fake seeds in the name of famous brands, they would be punished, he warned.

Farmers should also be vigilant while buying seeds and should not fall prey to cheaters by buying from unknown people at low prices. Some middlemen were forming gangs; cheating farmers by promising to give them seeds for low price and they were kept under surveillance.

If anyone comes across sale of fake seeds, they should immediately inform mandal agriculture officer or the local police. There would be constant monitoring by task force teams to ensure that fake seeds were not sold in the market, Dutt said.

During the raids, it was found that the local gangs operating in Enkoor and Kallur mandals were procuring fake seeds from different places in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. After processing the seeds using rizobin, the gangs packed those seeds using labels of brands like Arunodaya, Advance 555, Pallavi Seeds and others, the CP explained.

Rizobin is a biofertilizer used to improve the growth of legumes by fixing nitrogen in the soil. Police seized a large quantity of empty packets, weighing machines and several litres of rizobin chemical from the accused.

Ummaneni Naresh, Annem Lakshminarayana, Guguloth Gopi, V Ramesh, Tamballa Naveen, D Ramesh, Gajula Narasimha Rao, Cherlapalli Shalivahana and Poleti Koteswara Rao were the accused arrested. Two accused, Venigandala Srihari Rao of Himam Nagar in Enkoor mandal and Venigandla Ravi of Bapatla in AP are absconding.